


I Ain't No One

by chicafrom3



Series: One Lonely Night [2]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Blood, Dark, F/M, Fear, Grief, Mental Disorder, Trauma, dysfunction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-05
Updated: 2006-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/pseuds/chicafrom3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stop the red. Don't let me drown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Ain't No One

_Let's keep this to ourselves, ain't that alright?_

Zoe's the one on hand when the transmission comes in. It doesn't make much sense. River's voice is low and whispery, a string of consonants with no coherency.

"Plshlpplshlpthswsntsppsdthppnntlkthsplshlpjynejynejyne…"

"River?" she asks. "River, honey, what's wrong?"

There's a laugh with that old familiar crazy edge to it. "It's a secret," River whispers. "Come see for yourself."

"River!"

No answer comes back, no matter how much Zoe calls.

 _They can't hear us anyway_

In the hotel room River puts down the transmitter and looks back at the bed.

The red stains him all over and makes him look not-Jayne and that's wrong. So she finds a towel and soaks it in water, returns to the bed and starts cleaning him up.

"Don't worry, baobei," she tells him. "Nobody can see us now."

He doesn't respond.

She just keeps cleaning him up.

 _They don't care, it don't matter, and me—_

Zoe grabs a gun and Simon and they head into town to find River and figure out what's going on.

It takes several minutes for them to persuade (threaten) the hotel clerk to give them the room number and key, and then they're on their way.

The room is a shambles. Clothes are discarded haphazardly over furniture that's been turned over from haste and roughness. It's reminiscent of romantic encounters that have been happening since Earth That Was.

Other things about the room evoke far less pleasant images, and Simon pales.

 _I ain't no one_

Jayne lies on the bed, too still.

River kneels over him, calmly wiping at his chest with a towel that's soaked with a red that's rapidly turning black.

She doesn't look up at them.

Her pale skin is stained with the same red that soaks the towel and taints Jayne's skin.

The big main window is shattered, and broken glass covers the floor.

"Doc," Zoe hisses, her eyes fixed on Jayne, but Simon can't tear his eyes away from his sister.

 _I'll move on the day after today_

"Mei mei." Simon stumbles over to the bed and catches River in his arms. She shrugs him off and resumes her futile efforts to clean the red off of Jayne. "Mei mei, are you all right?"

She ignores him. She has to clean the red off of Jayne. It makes him look not-Jayne, and that's wrong.

"River, what happened?" and that's Zoe, and River can't listen to her either. If she listens, it'll slow her down, and she needs to get the red off Jayne.

Tomorrow she can worry about Simon and Zoe and _Serenity_.

Today is all about Jayne.

 _Catch my wave and I'll be gone_

It's several minutes before Zoe can gently pry the towel out of River's hand, and Simon slips into doctor mode.

"He's alive," he says, looking up from Jayne with a shocked expression a few minutes later. "But he's fading fast."

"Can you fix it?" Zoe asks.

He hesitates.

"Going, going, already gone…" River singsongs with a hysterical giggle, and she digs her fingers into Zoe's arm.

"Simon, can you fix him?!"

 _And now I'm saving myself and I'm headed for shore_

"I can try," Simon says at last. "But moving him wouldn't be a good idea right now—I'm going to have to work here."

"Then do it."

River looks up, blood-soaked strands of hair hanging in her eyes, and her expression suddenly snaps into focus. " _Save him, Simon_!"

"I'll try, mei mei."

"Don't try," she says fiercely. "Do it. Stop the red. Save me. Don't let me drown."

He gets to work.

 _There's time to spend on insignificance,_

Simon works and River chants to herself:

"He loves me  
He loves me not  
He loves me  
He loves me not  
He loves me…"

Zoe is stiff and awkward. Her head is full of blood and pain and anger and death, and River shuts her out.

"He loves me  
He loves me not…"

Simon's head is full of worry and fear and insecurity, and River shuts him out too. Because he has to do it. He has to succeed.

He has to fix Jayne.

She can't think about that right now.

"Loves me  
Loves me not…"

She focuses on the rhyme instead, old as Earth-That-Was, an unreliable method of determining someone's emotions. Meaningless. Useless. Unscientific. Untrustworthy.

"Loves me  
Loves me  
Loves me loves me lovesmelovesmelvsme…"

i love you, river

 _There's time to spend on my own_

River shrugs off Zoe's arm, fights against the offered reassurance and comfort, and pulls tighter into herself.

She doesn't want Zoe.

She doesn't want Simon.

She wants Jayne, rough and ragged 'round the edges, and if she can't have Jayne, she'll hold herself up all alone.

She can do 'alone'.

It's one of the things she's best at, along with dancing and quantum physics.

But still her eyes track every movement Simon makes.

 _And in this day I feel I'm well_

The look in River's eyes scares Zoe somewhere deep down, and so she asks, "River, honey, are you all right?"

She won't look at Zoe, gaze fixed determinedly on her brother, but she giggles and says, "She's fine. I'm fine. Everyone's fine."

"Simon's going to fix Jayne up right as rain, dong ma?"

"I'm fine," River repeats, and hunches forward, her hair falling in her face and her eyes not moving from Simon.

So Zoe gives up, sits back to wait, and hopes that River will come through intact.

 _There's a place that I'm going, called I don't know where_

It feels like hours pass, and maybe they do or maybe they don't, but finally Simon turns and lets out a breath that sounds like a sob and his eyes meet River's.

"Mei mei," he starts, and stops.

She waits.

Zoe swallows.

"Mei mei, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

And River waits, perfectly still, staring at Jayne now instead of Simon.

"I tried," Simon says at last, helpless and defeated. "I tried…"

And River waits.

 _But I'll be fine_

She just stares at Simon blankly.

She can't hear Jayne, and maybe that's better than the screaming terror but it doesn't _feel_ better.

Doctors are supposed to fix people, and Simon is supposed to fix Jayne, and everything is slightly tilted to the left, shot at Dutch angles and crooked.

"Mei mei," he says again. "River, are you okay?"

She just stares at him, past him, through him. Jayne's chest isn't moving, and that's wrong.

"River, I'm sorry."

Jayne's heart isn't beating, and that's wrong.

"River, listen to me, ni meí shì bà?"

Jayne's mind isn't racing, and that's _wrong_!

 _And me – I ain't no one, and I ain't no one_

She shuts them out, Zoe and Simon and their worry and fear and grief and anger. Small, petty emotions, focused on River— _why? jayne's the one lying there unalive, why focus on river?_ —and she shuts them out.

She shuts out Paquin, big and busy and full of people who don't care and people who do care but care about the wrong things. Normal, average people, honest and crooked, rich and poor, introvert and extrovert, lover and fighter, and she shuts them out.

She shuts out River, screaming her grief and rage, screaming his name again and again, a blood-soaked terror. Emotional and uncontrolled and useless, and she shuts her out.

She's gotten better at shutting out who she doesn't want.

She shuts everyone out, except for Jayne, lets him fill up who she is, only who _he_ is ain't much at the moment.

It's empty and cold and dark and she hangs on to it firmly.

 _I've been trying to save us_

Stupid hwoon dahn wouldn't listen to her, wouldn't hear, and if he had maybe this wouldn't have happened, but hearing was never good for him. He didn't like listening, thinking, reflecting; liked doing, being, acting.

Stupid selfless go tsao de hwoon dahn trying to save her till his last breath, and maybe if he hadn't he'd be sitting up now calling her crazy and moonbrain and baobei.

She could've saved them but he didn't let her and now here she is alone and she can't hear him anymore.

And that's the worst thing of all.

 _I've been dying to say this_

He told her he loved her, and now she breaks from Zoe and Simon and rushes to his side.

Puts her head down on his chest and closes her eyes.

Imagines a heartbeat.

"I love you too, xin gan," she whispers to him.

But he doesn't answer, and her anger starts to rise. Doesn't he know how hard it is for her to say that?

Doesn't he know how much he's hurting her?

 _It's your turn to wake up from out of no where_

She shoves at him, but he's too big for her.

"Wake _up_!" she shouts at him, and ignores Zoe and Simon. "Wake up, wake up, wake up, nî bù dông, I love you, Jayne Cobb! Wake up!"

She kisses him but her prince doesn't stir, and his lips are stiff and cool.

So she pushes him again, pounds her fists against his chest.

"Wake _up_! Get up! Be _Jayne_!"

And he just lies there.

"WAKE UP!"

 _It's your turn to wake up but nobody cares_

"River, River, stop!" And Simon is at her side, pulling her arms back, holding her still like a child or a pet so that she can't wake Jayne. "River, he's dead, you can't wake him up. River, _stop it_!"

"Wake up!" she screams at Jayne again. "Don't you understand? I love you! Wake up!"

"River," Zoe says, a little softly. "River, honey, listen to me."

River goes very still very suddenly.

She fixes her gaze on a metallic glint.

 _Are you listening to these words of mine!_

"River, hâo le ma." Zoe pushes ahead, hoping she's getting through to the girl. "I know what you're going through, but this isn't helping, okay?"

River just stares blankly.

"You can't save him like this. You can't save him at all—but you can make it mean something."

No response.

"You can remember him. You can do that, dong ma?"

No response.

"River, are you even listening to me?"

 _The meaning's hard to find, now we arise_

"Me?" River echoes softly, the words lilting.

And then she lunges forward and her hand seizes on the metal, pulls the gun out of Jayne's discarded trousers, and lifts it up.

"River!" Simon shouts.

"I ain't no one," she whispers, and pulls the trigger.

The world goes red and black and when she falls on Jayne's chest, she's already stopped breathing.


End file.
